Redwood Bench for Mom

This bench was made with much love for my Mom. She and Dad had a glider on their porch but they didn’t have a nice sitting bench out in the yard. They have a pI came across about 20 board feet of clear redwood (see the second picture) in 2 X 8 stock for something like 25 cents a board foot so I decided to make Mom a nice bench. The third and fourth pictures show my wonderful son refining the mortises and rounding over the edges on what will become his Grandma’s bench. The last two photos show the work in progress: some of the roughed out pieces and cleaning up the tenons. The finish was many coats of teak oil over several days.

Nice bench. If it is outside, it will age to a mellow silver-gray. But 25 cents a board foot? I just bought some similar redwood for about $4.00 a board foot – and I live on the Northern California coast where the redwood comes from. You scored!

Thanks for all the kind words my fellow lumberjocks. The project was great fun, made especially so by having my son work along with me. All four of us, me, my wife, son, and daughter got involved to some extent moving the bench, the materials or the equipment about, sanding, or applying finish.

Nice bench. My very first woodworking project (about 8 years ago) was a redwood bench similar but not the same as yours. Redwood was the first species of wood I worked with on a real woodworking project. Unfortunately no one warned be about how much an irritant redwood dust would be. There is a reason it hold up in the elements against insects. I almost gave up woodworking after that experience. Glad to see your son wearing a mask…

SRWoodworker,Thanks.We didn’t have a lot of problems with the dust, but I think that was because I moved all the tools out to the driveway. And, as you noted, we used dust masks. If we had tried to stay in the garage the dust would have bothered our eyes and permeated our clothes. I do not have good dust control.